The video in which the current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, in May 2019, during the electoral campaign for the European elections, he launched invectives against the then government of Giuseppe Conte for fuel prices and declared that he wanted to abolish excise duties on petrol, which he defined as a disgrace. Then came the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, as well as deputy prime minister and leader of the League, with his gas station promises. February 8 last year Matteo Salvini he promised that “if it reaches above 2 euros, the Government will intervene, as was already done last year”.
Giorgetti says that the flare-up in fuel prices does not depend on the government, but the right-wingers do nothing to calm them
Today the Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, explained that “there is already a provision which triggers an adjustment in relation to price changes”. To then conclude that “it is clear to everyone that the price of petrol does not depend on government decisions”. But Giorgetti in saying this sins, like and perhaps more than the others, of bad faith. We all know that the price of fuel depends on the oil rally and the increase in international prices of refined products, on geopolitical tensions, with the two ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and so on. But it is also true that the government is not moving a leaf to change this situation and intervene.
The provision to which Giorgetti refers, then, is contained in the law of 10 March 2023, n. 23, which converted the decree-law of 14 January of that year. Which in turn modified some articles of the Budget Law of 24 December 2007. Well, based on this provision, there is no automatic mechanism to control fuel prices but only the foreseen possibility of intervening on the basis of some parameters that trigger the alert threshold. But this threshold was significantly exceeded, and the only intervention the government made on excise duties was to cancel the discounts on them established by the executive of Mario Draghi. Without considering that the State, however, benefits from the surge in fuel prices with the greater revenue that arrives through VAT. But rather than thinking about returning part of it, the government resorted to palliative measures, which were largely dismantled by the Council of State and rejected by the Antitrust, such as the display of cartels with average petrol prices. Defended to the bitter end by the Minister of Business and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, who is now silent on the issue. Despite the price surge.
Petrol reached 1,911 euros per liter at the time
Petrol reached 1,911 euros per liter at the self, the highest since October 19th, i.e. for about six months. Codacons calculated that a full tank therefore costs 7.3 euros more than at the beginning of the year, while Assoutenti underlined that on the motorway there are peaks of 2.5 euros for the green fuel when served with heavy repercussions on the products transported, considering that in In Italy, 88% of goods travel by road. “A spring shock that we would have gladly done without,” he commented Massimiliano Dona, president of the National Consumers Union. “Giorgetti, new Pilate, says that it is not the government’s fault. Urso, creator of the useless genius of the obligation of the average price cartel for petrol stations, is ‘desaparecido’ on the issue. And finally Giorgia Meloni, the real person responsible for this bloodletting which has now become structural, continues to remain blissfully immobile in the face of this ongoing ‘tax’ which is anything but hidden”, declared the M5S parliamentarians of the Productive Activities commissions of the Senate and Chamber.
